January 18, 2023
by Cyber Ranch
This week, Allan is joined by Peter Schawacker, CEO @ Nearshore Cyber, former CISO, advisor to MSPs, etc. Another one of Allan's illustrious guests with 25 years in cyber. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/schawacker/). The topic started as all that the two have learned outside of cybersecurity that has helped them in cyber. But it gets way more esoteric than that, and quickly. Detailed show notes and links are provided below because this show is all over the place!
02:11 Point MOOt, Texas: MOO-based virtual city with virtual economy, virtual stock market, various political models of governance and high preponderance of highly interactive bots used for practical and administrative purposes. http://linguafranca.mirror.theinfo.org/9405/moo.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/leonard-bots.html
04:49 A fast tour of the the age of the universe, Planet Earth, and humans' presence on the planet, industrial revolution and the Internet
05:45 The Annex BBS in LA https://annex.net/about-us/
05:28 IRC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat
06:12 - Arthur C. Clarke - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." https://lab.cccb.org/en/arthur-c-clarke-any-sufficiently-advanced-technology-is-indistinguishable-from-magic/
07:12 - Iranian refugees, educated folks who spoke 5 languages and had 4 passports
07:49 - Dungeons and Dragons https://dnd.wizards.com/
08:05 - Life demands more of us than just having a job
08:16 - Karl Marx, Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Poetry
08:43 - TI-99 4A and the BASIC language on the Commodore PET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-99/4A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET
09:02 - Earthlink https://www.encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/earthlink-inc#:~:text=Earthlink%20Network%20was%20founded%20in,would%20be%20providing%20customer%20service.
09:24 - Tech Writing and List Making
09:41 - Running a SOC for Citi
10:20 - Jack of all trades and the value of curiosity and love, surprises and exploration
11:04 - There is no one cybersecurity - we don't even know what it is yet
11:40 - Cyber as nascent field with great opportunity to leverage other disciplines
13:02 - TOGAF and the CIO's organization and functions and the CISO reporting into the CIO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Group_Architecture_Framework
14:02 - Nobody knows what a CISO does
14:39 - We can't have it both ways - to have a seat at the table we must own risk and have accountability. Authority can't exist without accountability.
15:13 - Do CISOs know how to buy stuff? Lack of budgeting process.
15:45 - Eff around and find out - security incidents - order out of chaos - crisis management
16:34 - Pen testing as games (game theory): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
17:11 - The influence of playing music
18:48 - Wagner's invention of instruments https://www.californiasymphony.org/2018-19-season/epic-bruckner/whats-a-wagner-tuba/
19:12 - The influence of getting sober
19:30 - Chuck Anderson - Best guitar teacher on the planet? https://truefire.com/educators/chuck-anderson/e4187
19:45 - Dissonance and consonance; inverse ratio between complexity and power
20:17 - Entrepreneurial spirit in the music business and an illegal booking company
20:48 - Everything applies everywhere; metaphor and the origins of ideas
21:21 - Marx and Engels - revolutions get stuff done
21:43 - Rothko's artwork compared to The Ramones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rothko#:~:text=Mark%20Rothko%20(%2F%CB%88r%C9%92,a%20Latvian%2DAmerican%20abstract%20painter.
22:14 - The subconscious produces genius; we are all geniuses
22:51 - The mathematical concept of Aleph-0 and George Cantor as inventor of discrete math https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Aleph-0.html#:~:text=is%20often%20pronounced%20%22aleph%2Dnull,spelled%20%22aleph%2Dnought.%22
23:40 - Wittgenstein's refutation of Cantor despite computing being based on discrete math https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein
24:05 - Divine revelation or bipolar disorder?
24:33 - "The Aleph" short story by Jorge Luis Borges https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/borgesaleph.pdf
25:13 - "Weaving the Web" by Tim Berners Lee and Borges foreshadowing hyperlinks https://www.amazon.com/Weaving-Web-Original-Ultimate-Destiny/dp/006251587X
25:51 - We need heroes - mentoring without heroes is not possible
27:08 - Learning from the masters in cybersecurity; maybe we will be in history books
29:42 - Gaining sobriety, learning to reach out for help - valuable in cybersecurity
31:10 - Raising children; paternalism and cyber careers
32:32 - Edward de Bono - Lateral Thinking https://www.amazon.com/Lateral-Thinking-Creativity-Step/dp/0060903252
33:13 - "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics-ebook/dp/B000W94FE6